196 WORCESTER SOCIETY. 



once a year, and bring home the different seeds wanted by us, 

 so that we can have them renewed ; by being held thus re- 

 sponsible, they would find it for their interest, whilst abroad, to 

 obtain the information we so much need to know, whether 

 seed could remain with safety for months in damp ware-houses 

 in London or Liverpool, or be stored for months in the damp 

 cellars on Long Wharf; and in fact, they would be pretty likely 

 to find out before they were as old as Grant Thorburn, how 

 long seeds may be kept in a dry and suitable situation, and ger- 

 minate. 



But I fear some of our farmers will ask, why I would recom- 

 mend importing seed : First, because I believe it to be a posi- 

 tive law of nature, that seeds will not produce their like for 

 many successive years. The turnip, for instance, was originally 

 introduced from Flanders into Norfolk, (England,) more than 

 two centuries ago, and from England and Scotland to this coun- 

 try at diff"erent periods from its early settlement, and our soil 

 and climate are said, by the most intelligent travellers in this 

 country and Europe, to be quite as favorable as either. Why, 

 then, do we hear so much complaint about the Swedish, or 

 ruta baga turnips going to seed the first year, and if not quite 

 to seed, go more to top than bottom ? I never heard of such a 

 complaint ten years ago ; I could then grow from eight to twelve 

 hundred busliels per acre, and did do it, and was awarded the 

 liberal premiums offered by the Massachusetts, and Worcester 

 county Societies for promoting agriculture, more than once ; 

 but for the last three years, all will agree that this crop has 

 hardly been worth harvesting ; in Worcester county for the last 

 two years, a large share has gone to seed, and I doubt not that 

 some of this seed has or will find a deposit with some of our 

 shop keepers that can sell the article low. My loss for two years, 

 on this crop alone, is not less than two hundred dollars, as some 

 of the committee on roots can testify; and I will her(>, state, 

 that my gain on three acres of land this season, sowed with 

 imported English turnip seed, has, on the sale of one half of 

 my crop, been more than one hundred dollars over home seed, 

 sowed side by side. I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Web- 

 ster's remarks on the turnip crop as he had seen it in England 



